Space and Space Travel News

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Orbiting Edibles
International Space Station Goes Gourmet

Picture from spiegel.de > Photo Gallery: Heavenly Eating for the ISS

Germany's most famous chef, German top chef Harald Wohlfahrt, is cooking up a heavenly feast for astronauts in space. With the assistance of specialized labratory technology and his own cooking skills, he has whipped up Thanksgiving feasts for astronauts, who have typically eaten stale food and energy drinks to maintain their health.

German top chef Harald Wohlfahrt has figured out a way to bring fine dining into orbit. His new menus for the ISS have astronauts over the moon. Harald Wohlfahrt is used to hearing that his dishes are out of this world. Now, though, they really are -- literally. Wohlfahrt, recipient of three Michelin stars and among the finest chefs in Europe, is serving up meals to astronauts on the International Space Station. Among the choices: Swabian potato soup, braised veal cheeks with wild mushrooms and plum compote for dessert. The idea, he said, was to create something hearty and rustic. more...


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Harald Wohlfahrt with space food. Initially, he says that he had no idea what astronauts could eat in space. / dpa

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Astronauts have typically had to satisfy their hunger with stale foods and energy drinks. / ddp

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Michele Perchonok, a NASA food technologist, explains how astronauts would prepare a helping of green beans while in space at Houston's Johnson Space Center / AP


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Astronauts even get Thanksgiving feasts while in space. / AP

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The German chef sent three courses to the astronauts in space, using special cans. / dpa

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History Revealed

More than 12 billion years of cosmic history are shown in this panoramic, full-color view of thousands of galaxies.

This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, was made from mosaics taken in September and October 2009 with the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 and in 2004 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys and covers a portion of the southern field of a large galaxy census called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, a deep-sky study by several observatories to trace the evolution of galaxies.

The image reveals galaxy shapes that appear increasingly chaotic at each earlier epoch, as galaxies grew through accretion, collisions and mergers, which range from the mature spirals and ellipticals in the foreground, to smaller, fainter, irregularly shaped galaxies, most of which are farther away, and therefore existed farther back in time. These smaller galaxies are considered the building blocks of the larger galaxies we see today.

The image shows a rich tapestry of 7,500 galaxies stretching back through most of the universe's history. The closest galaxies seen in the foreground emitted their observed light about a billion years ago. The farthest galaxies, a few of the very faint red specks, are seen as they appeared more than 13 billion years ago, or roughly 650 million years after the Big Bang. This mosaic spans a slice of space that is equal to about a third of the diameter of the full moon (10 arc minutes).

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, R. Windhorst, S. Cohen, and M. Mechtley (Arizona State University, Tempe), R. O'Connell (University of Virginia), P. McCarthy (Carnegie Observatories), N. Hathi (University of California, Riverside), R. Ryan (University of California, Davis), and H. Yan (Ohio State University)

.. More > http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/index.html

Picture from nasa.gov > Year in Review: 2009

Picture from nasa.gov > NASA Photosynth Images

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Picture from spiegel.de > NASA: Departure into Space


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Shocked by the successes of the Soviet Union, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, started the American space program. When in May 1961 the first manned U.S. rocket lifted off, began the race to the moon. The Apollo mission should be a demonstration of world power. ... More


Picture from spiegel.de > Race to the moon - All articles and background

Photo Gallery, Affected Relics: The Apollo program in the museum


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A magnet for visitors: The command module of Apollo 11 "is one of the most important exhibits in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. While the device seems to easily survive the time, other remnants of the moon landing create deadaches to the museum curators.


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40 years old: In the museum, a lander of the "Apollo" program is shown as it was used in the Apollo Program.


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"Apollo" suit (by Alan Shepard at the Kennedy Space Center): The suits consists of 21 layers of different materials.


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"Apollo 11" crew: Neil Armstrong (left) and Edwin Aldrin (right) flew the lander "Eagle" to the moon, Michael Collins (center) had to watch the landing from the command module "Columbia". To enable the astronauts to move, were waist, knees and elbows of their suits foamed with padded rubber. Against the heat protected a film of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), in alternation with other fireproof materials. The outer skin of the suit was made of white Teflon.

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Astronaut Aldrin on the moon: "The suits are incredibly dirty," says museum curator Lewis. "The dust has rubbed deep into the tissue - it is a very, very stubborn dust."


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"Apollo" suit (by Alan Shepard at the Kennedy Space Center): The most widely used plastic in the suits is polyvinyl chloride (PVC). It is of the nature of hard and brittle. The addition of plasticizers makes it a useful material. But the plasticizers turn the material of the suits in time into a nasty mush.

Departure into space
As already 300 B.C.E. known to Aristarch of Samos the earth rotates around the sun. Unfortunatly this wasn't observed adequate. Since thousends of Years man dream of heaven and the stars, but it was not until the great disturbances at the beginning of the last century and the following Cold War as everything were ready to really start the departure into space. (more)


Picture from solarsystem.nasa.gov > Earthrise - Apollo 8

Date: 29 Dec 1968 - This view of the rising Earth greeted the Apollo 8 astronauts as they came from behind the Moon after the lunar orbit insertion burn. Earth is about five degrees above the horizon in the photo. The unnamed surface features in the foreground are near the eastern limb of the Moon as viewed from Earth. The lunar horizon is approximately 780 kilometers from the spacecraft. Width of the photographed area at the horizon is about 175 km (109 miles). On the Earth 386,000 km (240,000 miles) away, the sunset terminator bisects Africa.


Picture from weltraumladen.com (Picture: Hermann Oberth, NASA)

Hermann Oberth, laid down the theoretical fundamentals of spaceflight in his book "Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen".


Hermann Oberth was born in 1894 in Siebenbürgen (Transylvania, Romania). He was school teacher in physics and mathematics, visonary of spaceflight and comitted freethinker not only in the field of astronautics. 1923 Oberth published his pioneering book "Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen". (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space)


Picture from weltraumladen.com “Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen”

Handed over to the university of Heidelberg as dissertation, the writing was declined because no one was able to judge it. He died in Nuremberg, Germany. In Feucht in the vicinity of Nuremberg were he lived after he left Romania and returned from the USA, one can visit the Herman Oberth Museum opened there in appreciation of his contributions in the field of astronautics. ... More


Picture from oberth-museum.org > www.oberth-museum.org

The Hermann Oberth Museum in Feucht just outside Nuremberg, Germany. In appreciation of the contributions of Hermann Oberth, the "Hermann Oberth Society" in 1971 founded the "Hermann Oberth Space Museum" in Feucht, a small town near Nuremberg. Since 1989 the borough of Feucht provides the present building for the museum, which has an exhibition-area of 160m².


Picture from nuernberg-total.de > Hermann Oberth Space Museum


Numerous originals, models, text-and picture posters, and exhibits lent by American-, Soviet- and European space-agencies tell about the history and development of this future-oriented technology. Thus, besides many other exhibits, one can admire the space-suite of a Russian cosmonaut, the overall worn by the German D1-astronaut Ernst Messerschmid, a life-size model of "Sputnik I", and the third stage of the carrier-rocket "Europa I". ... More


Picture from oberth-museum.org

Wernher von Braun, father of American space program, portrayed Oberth with the following words:

"Hermann Oberth was the first, who when thinking about the possibility of spaceships grabbed a slide-rule and presented mathematically analyzed concepts and designs... I, myself, owe to him not only the guiding-star of my life, but also my first contact with the theoretical and practical aspects of rocketry and space travel. A place of honor should be reserved in the history of science and technology for his ground-breaking contributions in the field of astronautics."

Picture from ia341331.us.archive.org > Five Pioneers with Scale Models of Their Missiles - NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center

Picture from rri.ro > Romanian Scientists: Hermann Oberth

Romania also had a contribution in the field of space flights through its very talented scientists such as Hermann Oberth, a Romanian physicist and rocket builder of German origin. Together with Russian Konstantin Tiolkovski and American Robert H. Goddard, Oberth is considered the founder of astronautics.

Herman Oberth was born in Sibiu in 1894. When he was a child, he avidly read Jules Verne's books, being fascinated by two of them in particular: “From the Earth to the Moon” and “Round the Moon”. It is worth mentioning that the Austrian Conrad Haas had already been the first to design rockets equipped with stabilization wings for space flights in the 1550 Renaissance Sibiu. Hermann Oberth's own career swerved towards medicine, although he built his first rocket at only 14. He studied medicine for two years before giving it up. He chose to pursue his passion after WWI in which he participated as a physician.

Picture from t3.gstatic.com www.nasaimages.org

Hermann Oberth (1894-1989) is considered to be one of the top three pioneers in modern rocketry and is credited with suggesting that space stations would be essential if humans wished to travel to other planets. (more)


In 1922, Oberth enrolled for a PhD degree with a paper entitled “The Rocket to the Inter-planetary Space”. He tried to defend his thesis at the Heidelberg University but, as in the case of many other inventors, his paper was rejected. Oberth did not give up and presented it in 1923 at the Cluj University, Romania. In 1929, 6 years after defending his thesis, he published the volume “The Ways of Space Navigation” in which he spoke about the technique of inter-planetary flight. His book was awarded the Hirsch prize by the International Astronomy Society in France. In 1931, also in Romania, his invention on the fuel used for rockets was patented by the Office for Trademarks and Designs. After WW II Hermann Oberth left Romania to settle in the Federal Republic of Germany. ... More


Picture from rogersrocketships.com Spaceship Design Drawings:

The Modell was designed by Hermann Oberth and originally presented in his book, “Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen” in 1923. It was the very first 2-stage upper atmosphere sounding rocket! ... More

History.Nasa.gov

Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science
Ch. 3, Prophets and Pioneers of Spaceflight

Three persons were particularly significant in the transition from the small rockets of the 19th century to the colossi of the space age: Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky in Russia, Robert H. Goddard in the United States, and Hermann Oberth in Germany.
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Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), the man of "great efforts and little rewards,"....considered to be the "father" of present Soviet achievements in rocket technology. He gave Russia a spaceship project which was, for 1903, absolutely unique. But being what he was-a mere teacher in a remote provincial school, a technologist rather than a theoretician-his project did not attract the attention in deserved.


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Apparently it took the publication in Germany, in 1923 of "Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen" by the *Hungarian - (Transylvania was until WW I part of Austria-Hungary, now Romania ) -born Hermann Oberth to goad the Russians into action. Following the appearance of Oberth's work, in which the author elaborated in great detail the application of rocket propulsion to spaceflight, Tsiolkovsky's earlier works were sought out and avidly studied. Interest in rocket propulsion increased noticeably in the Soviet Union, which took special pains to assert Russian claims to priority by issuing in 1924 German translations of Tsiolkovsky's writings. That same year Friedrikh A. Tsander, Tsiolkovsky, and Felix E. Dzherzhinsky started the Society for Studying Interplanetary Communications, a major aspect of which concerned interplanetary travel. ... More -


Picture from 3.bp.blogspot.com > Hermann Oberth -- Half a Century Ahead

Dr. Herman Oberth, a rocket engineer who was taken to the US after the war and became one of the fathers of modern spaceflight, said: "It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and that they are spaceships from another solar system.There is no doubt in my mind that these objects are interplanetary craft of some sort. I and my colleagues are confident that they do not originate in our solar system." > Source: strangedaze666.blogspot.com > Related Links

The Beginning of Space Exploration


Picture from aerospace.go.kr > aerospace.go.kr


1232 Jin Dynasty of China developed the 'Bi-Hwa-Chang

Picture from aerospace.go.kr
1448 Chosun developed an arrow rocket called the 'Joongshin-Gijun'

1903 Ziolkovsky of the former USSR published his scientific paper "Exploration of Space with Reactive Devices"

1923 Oberth published "Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen" (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space) ... More

Picture from kiosek.com www.kiosek.com/oberth

In 1923, the year after the rejection of his dissertation, he published the 92 page Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen (The Rocket into Planetary Space). This was followed by a longer version (429 pages) in 1929, which was internationally celebrated as a work of tremendous scientific importance. That same year, he lost the sight in his left eye in an experiment while working as a technical advisor to German director Fritz Lang on his film, “Girl in the Moon.”

In the thirties Oberth took on a young assistant who would later become one of the leading scientists in rocketry research for the German and then the United States governments; his name was Wernher von Braun. They worked together again during the Second World War, developing the V2 rocket, the “vengeance weapon” for the German Army, and again after the war, in the United States at the U.S. Army’s Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Alabama. However, three years later Professor Oberth retired and returned to Germany. (more)
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Picture from history.msfc.nasa.gov
Picture from history.msfc.nasa.gov

Early Days of Rockets and Aeronautics

Notes on Hermann Oberth
Space Pioneer Hermann Oberth was Von Braun Mentor


Picture from upload.wikimedia.org > wikimedia.org

Oberth with Wernher von Braun in Berlin


Space pioneer Hermann Oberth, was considered by many to be the most famous mentor of the late Dr. Wernher von Braun, the first director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. "On the German side, I have to mention before all Professor Hermann Oberth who offered the world new basic concepts in the field of rocket technology," Von Braun wrote in 1959.

Oberth was born in Hermannstadt (Sibiu rom.), Transylvania, the son of Dr. Julius Oberth, a physician. He attended schools at Schaessburg (Sighisoara rom.), Transylvania, until he was ready to enter the University of Munchen in 1913. He later became a professor of mathematics and physics.

(Note by Harsi: Transylvania was for many centuries until the end of WW I part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire were many people of German origins lived and the cities and villages all had German or Hungarian names. When Transylvania (Siebenburgen is the German name) became part of Romania after WW I they all got a Romanian name)

For two years (1928-30) he experimented with gasoline and liquid air as a rocket propellant while working as an advisor to the film company making the space-oriented film "Girl in the Moon." In the spring of 1930, a young Wernher von Braun enrolled at the Berlin Institute of Technology and in his spare time assisted Oberth in his early experiments in testing a liquid-fueled rocket stage with about 15 pounds of thrust.

In September 1930, Oberth returned to a teaching post in Romania while von Braun continued experiments under the sponsorship of the German Society for Space Travel. Oberth rejoined Von Braun and his team of scientists working on rockets at Peenemuende during World War II. After the war, his research continued, and for a time he was engaged in rocket research for the Italian navy.
In 1955, he was invited to rejoin the rocket team. This time, Oberth came to Huntsville where he pursued rocket studies in the Technical Feasibility Studies Office of the U. S. Army Ordnance Missile Laboratories. In 1956, he transferred to the Army Ballistic Missile Agency as chief of Special Fields in the Research Projects Office. He resigned from U. S. government service in November 1958 and returned to Germany.

Von Braun later claimed that Oberth's book, "A Rocket to the Interplanetary Space," which was published in 1923, gave "proof that it was possible to travel to other planets by means of liquid propellant rockets."

Oberth, who visited the Marshall Center as recently as 1985, is also remembered by others in Huntsville. Bill Snoddy, now retired from the Marshall Center, went to work for the Army in Huntsville in 1958. Snoddy recalls that crowded conditions meant that many new employees ended up with their desks in the hallway of Bldg. 4484. "My desk was outside Professor Oberth's office," Snoddy said. "I was new and was only around him for a few months before he went back to Germany. But I remember that he was a very quiet person. He was very humble."

Snoddy also remembers seeing the many charts and exotic illustrations in Oberth's office: "He was a visionary. Like Von Braun, he could communicate his ideas in drawings and writings." Recalling Oberth's close association with Von Braun, Snoddy said, "If Von Braun can be considered the father of the space age, then Oberth must be the grandfather."

Hermann Oberth died Dec. 29, 1989, in a hospital in Nuremberg, West Germany (more)

Picture from weltraumladen.com > Books by Hermann Oberth > Amazon.com

> Biography of Hermann Oberth (1894-1989), the father of space flight by Boris V. Rauschenbach, N. York, 1994)

A fascinating biography of the man whose ideas and mathematical formular proved space flight possible. Nearly all vital modern space travel concepts used today are founded on Hermann Oberth's ideas.

"What is the purpose of space travel? To make available for life every place where life is possible. To make inhabitable all worlds as yet uninhabitable, and all life purposeful." (Hermann Oberth)

"The dramatic moment at which a human being first set foot on another heavenly body was a new high point in human history, a high point for which Hermann Oberth laid the foundation and created the prerequisites." (Wernher von Braun)
"Hermann Oberth has breathed life into the age of space, nurtured it, and watched it grow." (Neil Amstrong) ... More

> Oberth on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Oberth
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Picture from centennialofflight.gov > In Remembrance of Hermann Oberth

Oberth's skill at developing, with prophetic clarity, future projects for mankind, necessitates the question, whether mankind is ready for these future tasks. In the books, Matter and Life and Catechism of the Uranics, he concludes, on the grounds of scientific considerations, that man has an eternal and educable soul, and that we "can never be completely certain about reward and punishment in the hereafter because," as he goes on to say, "in that case the good works, from a psychological viewpoint, would take on the quality of usury and would no longer be seen as an expression of the social instinct. God cannot create the ideal man without educating him. That is His only means of molding man for His purposes." (more)

Braeunig, Robert A. “Rocket and Space Technology.” http://www.braeunig.us/space/index.htm
“The Evolution of the Rocket: Germany.” http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Srockhis.htm
“Hermann Oberth: Father of Space Travel.” http://www.kiosek.com/oberth/
“Rocketry Through the Ages.” http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/rocketry/ > www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/oberth/

Primer for Those Who Would Govern, by Hermann Oberth (His last book)
The Ideal Situation, by Hermann Oberth (Excerpt from his last book) > Articles by and about Oberth

Wikipedia.org

Army Ballistic Missile Agency
From Wikipedia


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Hermann Oberth (front) with officials of the ABMA in 1956. Left to right: Ernst Stuhlinger (seated); Major General H. N. Toftoy, Wernher von Braun, and Eberhard Rees. Source: NASA


The Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) was the agency formed to develop the US Army's first intermediate range ballistic missile. It was established at Redstone Arsenal on February 1, 1956 and commanded by Major General John B. Medaris with Doctor Wernher von Braun.

In the March, 1958 ABMA was placed under the new Army Ordnance Missile Command (AOMC) along with Redstone Arsenal, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, White Sands Proving Ground and the Army Rocket and Guided Missile Agency (ARGMA).[1] General Medaris was placed in command of AOMC and BG John A. Barclay took command of ABMA.

The Redstone missile was the first major project assigned to ABMA. After the US Naval Research Laboratory's Project Vanguard was chosen by the DOD Committee on Special Capabilities, over the ABMA's proposal to use a modified Redstone ballistic missile as a satellite launch vehicle, ABMA was ordered to stop work on satellites and focus, instead, on intermediate missiles.

Von Braun, disobeying orders, continued work on the design for what became the Jupiter-C IRBM. This was a three-stage rocket, which, by coincidence, could be used to launch a satellite in the Juno I configuration. In September 1956, the Jupiter-C was launched with a 30 lb (14 kg) dummy satellite. It is generally believed that, at this time, the ABMA could have put a satellite into orbit had the US government allowed ABMA to do so. A year later, the Soviets launched Sputnik 1. A Redstone based Jupiter-C launched Explorer 1 on 31 January 1958.[2] Redstone was later used in Project Mercury and as part of the Saturn I launch vehicle.

In 1956, studies began for a replacement for the Redstone missile. Initially called the Redstone-S (solid), the name was changed to Pershing and a contract was awarded to The Martin Company, beginning a program that lasted 34 years.

In early 1958, NACA's "Stever Committee" included consultation from the ABMA's large booster program,[3]headed by Wernher von Braun.[3] Von Braun's Group was referred to as the "Working Group on Vehicular Program."

In 1958 AMBA's scientific and engineering staff, including Von Braun and Arthur Rudolph, were transferred to the newly created NASA, and the facilities on the southern half of Redstone Arsenal became Marshall Space Flight Center. Medaris took command of AOMC in 1958 and BG John A. Barclay became the ABMA commander. In 1961 the AOMC space related missions and most of its employees, facilities and equipment were transferred to NASA. BG Richard M. Hurst took command from May 1960 until December 1961 when both ABMA and ARGMA were abolished and the remnants were folded directly into AOMC. AOMC was restructured into the new US Army Missile Command (MICOM) in 1962. ... More